“Study after study has found almost no evidence of organized voter fraud, in Texas or anywhere in the country,” stated the letter signed by Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas, Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio, Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Gene Green of Houston, Ruben Hinojosa of Mercedes, Silvestre Reyes of El Paso and Al Green of Houston.

“There is simply no reason to believe that voter fraud is a pressing problem for Texas. But we know with certainty that voter idenitification laws prevent eligible voters from exercising their constitutional rights.”

Democrats argue that Republicans in the Texas legislature are targeting minority communities, which vote overwhelmingly Democratic, in an effort to scare legal voters away from the polls.

The congressional Democrats predicted that as many as “hundreds of thousands of Texans” would be prevented from voting under the Perry-backed proposal, called Senate Bill 14, “the majority of them people of color, senior citizens, the disabled, students and low income voters.”

Instead of spending time on the Voter ID bill, the Texas Democrats suggested that Perry and state lawmakers spend their time on “education, job creation and providing Texans with access to affordable, quality health care.”

AP photo

Rick Perry

The Democrats’ letter echoed the views of Texas Democratic leaders, who (much less diplomatically) complained about Perry’s political machinations.

“It appears the ‘emergency item’ driving Rick Perry’s priorities is his quest to become a national GOP celebrity at any cost,” Texas Democratic Party chair Boyd Richie said yesterday. “While the governor’s hair may be camera-ready, he only wants the spotlight when it suits his own partisan politics. When it comes to the real emergency &#151 our state’s $27 billion budget deficit and massive program cuts &#151 Perry tries to distract Texans with divisive issues that are not ‘emergencies’ at all.”

Perry, never one to sit back and let his opponents set the political agenda, yesterday ridiculed critics who suggested that lawmakers could not balance the many “emergency” tasks before them with budget-balancing and other “non-emergency” state issues.